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On Tap.

Revolver’s Blood & Honey Offshoot, Sangre y Miel Es Muy Perfecto.

Welcome to On Tap! Each week in this recurring feature, we’ll take an in-depth look at one of the many beers now available in the suddenly crowded North Texas brew scene. The goal here is to look at these area beers without our local goggles on and to wonder aloud, “Is this beer good or do I just like it because it’s local?” Should be a fun experiment, no? Cheers to that!

Overview.
Did you know that Revolver Brewing is the largest self-distributing brewery in Texas? Wow, I had no idea! Since this is not a treatise on the good ol’ boys network, I will shy away from spending too much time talking about the love-hate relationship some breweries have with the distribution tier of the three-tier system. But just know that, for many-a-brewer, getting in bed with a distributor is seen as a necessary evil for market expansion and logistics. It’s getting lonely up here on this soap box, though, so I will step down now.

Back to the beer: Revolver’s flagship brew, Blood & Honey, probably provides the largest chunk of the brewery’s revenue. If you haven’t had Blood & Honey, chances are that you’re either new to DFW or you have been living under a rock. While I don’t really go seek out Blood & Honey on the regular, I do have an immense respect for it. It’s just a solid, all-around kickass craft gateway beer. Blue Moon? No, thank you. I’ll take a Blood & Honey.

On the other hand, there’s Sangre y Miel, which translates to Blood & Honey en Espanol and is Revolver’s first foray in to American Wild Ale territory. Its Revolver’s first sour, and the brewery has knocked it out of the park. Sangre y Miel is an excellent beer, in every sense.

Let’s take a closer look at the how and why.

Background on American Wild Ale.
The American Wild Ale style is a lovely style that is quickly gaining popularity. I think we will reach peak-barrel soon, and the demand for barrels will go back to its normal state. But, until then, more and more breweries are making some excellent beers with fun experiments. For a primer on this particular sour style, check out our review on Deep Ellum’s Play Date and/or Collective’s Petite Golden Sour. As with DEBC’s Play Date, which builds on Dallas Blonde, Revolver starts out Sangre y Miel with its already kickass Blood & Honey. Then it ages it in Chardonnay barrels for over a year. And here’s where the fun part comes in: According to my source at Revolver, this is a spontaneous fermentation situation.

Appearance.
The appearance is on point for Sangre y Miel. It’s a somewhat clear beer even after its time in the barrel; it’s as clear, or clearer, than its base beer. There is a thin layer of head apparent just as my favorite bartender at Goodfriend hands me this pour. But it fades quickly and I’m left with a flat-looking beer. It is important to note here that some wild yeast like Lactobacillus can contribute to a lack of head, so this aspect is not totally unexpected at all.

Aroma.
Sangre y Miel starts with a tart, almost peppery whiff of lemon. After the citrus, a super clean sour aroma hits my nose. In my somewhat limited education on the sour style, I have found that there are sort of two major styles of sour — Lactobacillus (Lacto) and Brettanomyces (Brett). And if I had to guess, I would guess that this super clean aroma is a byproduct of Brett.

Flavor.
It’s clean. It’s funky. How can those two things go together? Let me explain. Typically, the more tart types of sours are brewed with Lactobacillus, thus creating a puckeringly-sour situation. But I don’t get that with Sangre y Miel. It’s sour, no doubt, but it’s a clean, inviting tartness that dances across my palate — and it doesn’t leave my face crinkled up like some sours do, either. There is also just the tiniest hint of more of a wild barnyard. Let me emphasize this: It’s the tiniest hint. Because this is a spontaneous secondary fermentation in the barrel, Revolver just let whatever happen, well, happen. So it’s probably a mix of a bunch of different wild yeasts and bacteria at play here. Whatever the ratio is, it works, and it is excellent. Other flavors I get involve a bright lemon, along with a dry, clean sense on my palate. I think maybe some ghost of chardonnay past has made its way in to this beer, and it adds a layer of dryness and complexity to the flavor. The sweetness I get with Blood & Honey has finished off in to a dry, super crisp finish.

Mouthfeel.
The mouthfeel is on point with Sangre y Miel. There is a biting kick of carbonation, but it’s certainly not over-carbonated like some caged and corked, bottle-conditioned sours you may be more accustomed to. The beer is incredibly smooth for its 7.7 percent ABV. The sour notes and complex flavors disguise the alcohol excellently. Sangre y Miel has a little bit higher ABV compared to the other DFW sours in this same category, but lacks some of the thinness that these beers have. The beer finishes clean and crisp, and I get very little residual sugar.

Overall Impression.
This beer is excellent. Because it’s a sour, there is a rather wide latitude on flavor profile. It is a bit hoppier than what I normally see from sour beers, but it is super-balanced. Both the aroma and flavor is complex and delicate at the same time. The finish is clean and crisp. Also, unlike some other aged sours, this beer is unusually affordable for what it is. I just drank two pours while writing this review, and I could stay here and have another two without wanting to switch it up. No pucker, no heartburn, just clean complex flavor. This beer obviously doesn’t have the revenue-generating, market-grabbing power that Blood & Honey has, nor the logistical capability to be made on the regular. It’s a barrel-aged beer, after all.

Ben Smithson is a beer fan, avid homebrewer and foodie. If he's not brewing, learning or writing about beer, you might find him hanging out at one of the local craft beer joints in East Dallas. To counter his bad habits, he rides his bike and kayaks when the weather is nice.